Sweet sixteen and always been kissed

Sixteen years married today. Sweet sixteen and always been kissed.

Time to share some of the beautiful photos from the most beautiful day. I am so lucky to have what I have. Douglas, I might hate on you a lot of time, but I love you more than I could ever explain. Here's to the next sixteen years! ❤

 

memories of 9/11 - 20 years later

twenty years ago today, i was sitting in a café in natal, brazil with a few other exchange students when footage of planes hitting a building and the ensuing terror was shown on their television. we were all pretty amazed, but thought it was a preview for an upcoming movie and continued to eat our lunch. a few minutes later, the owner came over to our table and told us that what we were seeing was live news footage, there had been a terrorist attack on the world trade centre in new york city and that we had better go home to our families until we knew more. none of us was an american, but this day would affect us all and the rest of the world in all the years to follow. 

my host family were due to fly to walt disney world in florida the next week. they never ended up going as all flights were grounded in and out of the us for a time. airport security was tightened to what we now know. people were fearful of what would happen next. almost 3000 people died that day, 25000 people were injured and the destruction of the world trade centre lead to a global recession. this act of terrorism and the lives lost will never be forgotten in history because even though it happened in the united states, it affected the world.

douglas was on his mission in melbourne at the time and received a call that morning from his zone leaders telling them that something had gone down in the u.s. and to stay home until further notice but if they absolutely had to go out to go in neutral clothing, not their suits. it was such an unknown at that stage and no one knew what effects it would have. being that most people assume missionaries from our church are american, it was safer to lay low until they had more information. their phone rang off the hook all day with members calling to make sure their families were okay.

i feel so blessed to not have had to deal with an act of terrorism in my life and to be so sheltered in sleepy western australia, but i am constantly mindful of those who have dealt with (and continue to deal with) these horrific situations. when so many things have happened over the years there have been calls to pray for these people, pray for this place, pray for this thing. but above all, we need to pray for the world. if only one day we could know peace.❤

 

the ozone halo tour at optus stadium

doug loves to do crazy stuff and i'm not really a fan. there really isn't enough money in the world to get me to jump out of a plane, or to go bungee jumping... it's just not my thing and i am absolutely petrified of heights. but today i made an exception. our local football stadium has in recent months, started to offer what is called the halo tour. it allows for up to 16 people to take a tour around the top ring of the stadium, 37 metres above the ground. i thought he would really enjoy it so booked it in for his birthday.

this is where the fun began. we then had the stadium call and cancel our booking, because an afl finals game had been slotted in (due to the covid otutbreaks and the subsequent lockdowns in the eastern states, a lot of the games have had to be played without spectators and some redirected to wa because we are still covid free thanks to our premier and his fast action in closing the borders off and locking down whenever we have community spread) and to keep the booking, we had to pay a premium fee and purchase a ticket to the game as it then became a "game day experience tour." nothing like making a bit of money is there! in the end, i rebooked for today.

perth city at sunset behind us 

it rained on and off for the entire day and i really wondered if the tour would actually go ahead, but as the weatherman predicted, a few hours before the rain cleared and we were good to go. 

it was actually the first time i had even been to the stadium so the size of it blew me away, before we even got into the top section.

then came the "fun" part. as part of the tour, you are able to lean off the edge over the stadium (vommmm) to experience an extra thrill. i can't say i was actually overly keen on the idea but thought i'd give it a go anyway. yep. still don't like heights. don't let that smile fool you. i spent that time imagining plummeting to my death. funnily enough though, walking around at that height and even going out onto the ledge didn't bother me as there was solid ground below me. it's just the hanging off that wasn't my thing.

doug wears a harness and works at heights on the daily and was completely unphased by the whole thing... in fact he loved it, so i obviously got it right!

seriously look how happy that dude is!

and here's one of us together looking so happy to be alive. 

the tour itself was pretty cool and not even that expensive - just $79 per person. but - here's the crunch, the photos were $50 for the package. i was like whatttttt? and to be honest our photos aren't even very good. i was less than impressed with them - and probably would have complained once i had downloaded them. i have a friend that did the tour with her husband a few weeks earlier and their pics were amazing and they had like 14 of them! but. as luck would have it, their eftpos machine was down and the staff told us to just take our download code and they would contact us the next day for payment. to date, (it's now the end of october that i've added this in lol) no one has contacted us, so i'm assuming they saw how bad they were and didn't want to charge us! fine by me.

matagarup bridge by night as we exited the stadium.

it was a great night and i am so glad we went. especially followed by an awesome dinner at the rose and crown where our mate ross is the chef. that was the highlight for me hahah.

and just to add to the post one more time - here is the afl premiership cup a few weeks later sitting on the ledge where we were hanging off. pretty good view isn't it! so worth the time. 10/10 recommend, but probably better during the day. it was such a stormy day that it got dark far too quickly and wasn't really twilight, more night. 

 

15 years down, eternity to go

fifteen years. gone in the blink of an eye. sometimes i don't even understand how it is possible, yet here we are. there are so many wonderful quotes about the beauty of marriage, but i want to be real. sometimes it's downright ugly. your spouse is your safe place. it's not all sunshine and roses. it's not always going to be amazing. some days you'll want to kill each other. but for me, it's always come down to whether or not you want to stay married. 

so many people walk away when it gets hard. they think it's easier to just let go rather than work at something. and maybe it is. maybe there have been times when it would have been easier to walk away. but we chose not too. we stuck it out. through the happy times. the sad times. the hard and dark and difficult times. and we are still married, because we want to be. above all else, we want to be with each other. i wonder how many people would fight harder for their marriages if they thought more about it being a choice. not something that you can just throw in when there are bumps in the road. because it's not an option for us. we chose each other - and we are in for the long haul.

fifteen years ago, we knelt across the altar from each other and promised to love each other for eternity. that's not up yet. so here we are. just doing the best we can. we are not perfect, but we are trying.

there is an old saying "choose your love, then love your choice." i'm doing just that. there is still no one else i would rather be with, even in the hardest and worst times.

we booked a table at the rose and crown in guildford where our friend works as the chef and oh were we looked after. beautiful mains, amazing service and a gorgeous little private table in a gazebo in the courtyard. we were so stoked. even our own fancy personalised dessert that hasn't made it to the menu yet. such a good night. 

here's to at least another 15 my love! ❤

yellow roses

as we were walking back to the car yesterday after the temple, i paused at the roses and took a snap to share here, because the yellow roses at the temple hold a wonderful memory for me. thirteen and a half years ago, my husband broke one off of the bushes, knelt before me and said, "jade i've loved you from the first time i saw you and i promise i'll love you forever. will you marry me?" 

nine months later, at the same place, the perth australia temple of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, we promised to do just that - and somehow, we are still loving each other, even though sometimes it's hard. but seeing those roses each time i go to the temple reminds me of those two youngsters, madly in love that knew a future together was ahead of them and totally possible. that's when i know that we will always make it through ♥

10 years later...

ten years ago today, doug and i knelt together in the temple and promised to love each other, not just for this life, but for what comes next... and during those ten years, there has been good times, some really bad times... but it remains the best decision i have made to this day. 

i decided to revisit my wedding photos and pop some up for our anniversary and so many wonderful memories came flooding back.

i was born in fremantle and my family moved to the bush in clackline when i was just 4 years old. i have a neverending love for fremantle though even to this day and for some reason, every time we go there, it's like coming home. for years i carried a dream in my head of having a photo in the whalers tunnel on my wedding day, and with the help of our amazing photographer, we made it happen. it is by far my favourite photo from the wedding and i never tire of seeing it. 

it was a stinking hot week when we got married. it was 37, 38, 36 degrees celcius, then all of a sudden on our wedding day it was 23. what a miracle. to this day i still cannot believe it, but it was a beautiful day. perfect in every way.

one of the most wonderful parts of my wedding day was having all my brothers there to share the experience with me. they remain one of the most important things in my world and i am so grateful to have grown up as the youngest child, with three wonderful brothers to keep me grounded and remind me who i am.

we were surrounded by the most important people in our lives... and although i see so many people who fall out of touch with their bridal party members, our love for them remains the same. i chose my best friend jennifer, one of my oldest and dearest friends alexandra and dougs sister dominque, with my oldest niece laura as a flower girl. douglas was backed by his three "best men" as he called them, his two best friends from his childhood michael and james, as well as his cousin matthew and another cousins son matthew douglas (named after those two!)

i was super lucky to have my makeup done by michaels wife penny (who hilariously i have known since i was 11, so random that we ended up marrying friends) who is amazing and did an incredible job. i have never felt more beautiful in my entire life. 

i love our photos. i still love to look at them and i am forever grateful for the patience of our photographer, a friend from church who stayed with us for hours so i could get what i wanted. i had so many ideas (and i was obsessed with photos even then) and was thrilled with the results.

this sweet little girl asked her dad the night before the wedding what a flower girl was meant to do. he told her to carry the train of my dress and to carry my flowers if i needed her to. she was incredible and such a sweetheart. she would continually appear and i would feel the end of my dress being lifted into the air and see her sweet smiling face. she is so special to me and i am so grateful to be her aunt.

the boathouse on crawley bay was a quick stop, our limo driver pulled into the bus bay to drop us off and then pulled into a side street while he waited. i love this place. i would pass it so often driving the work cars and i knew i needed to have this shot. 

you'll notice i have a veil on in just this photo and not any of the others. a veil wasn't in my wedding dreams but i always wanted to have one photo of it blowing in the wind. it was my mothers and i love that we got this shot. it was my something borrowed for the day...

one of the most wonderful parts of my day was being able to walk into the reception on my fathers arm. having our ceremony in the temple does not allow for the tradition of a father walking his daughter down the aisle, so it was wonderful to share this brief moment with my dad. he is truly the most wonderful man i could have been blessed with as a dad. 

doug's cousin matthew was in charge of reading the "telegrams" and well wishes from the relatives that couldn't make it to the wedding. he did such a good job and we were really impressed. more so when we found out later on that all of the pieces of paper he was reading from were blank. every single one... and he was just making them up as he went along. he's always been a joker, so really this didn't come as a surprise. 

our speeches were hysterical. there was so so much fun and laughter and it was just so wonderful to be with people we loved. we were all especially amused when dad started his speech telling all our guests about how doug asked his permission to ask me to marry him one afternoon when they were out on the farm shooting. dad apparently retaliated with "you realise i am holding a shot gun don't you." it always makes me laugh to think about it because doug said when it was his turn to talk that it was a case of marry me or die trying. dag. 

of course i stuck with tradition...

something old: my booties that i wore on my blessing day, attached to my bouquet (along with two two fabric horseshoes. mum always wanted to have a horseshoe on hers and when she tried to order one along with her flowers she was told by the florist "oh no darling,you don't order one, someone will give you one" they didn't, she was upset and so i had one for me and one for her

something new: my jewellery

something borrowed: my mothers veil

something blue: a pendant that belonged to my dads mother, it's a simple gold pendant with a blue stone set in it. i had it tied to the strap of my bra with a piece of blue silk ribbon

and this cake. it was so incredible. it was exactly what i asked for and tasted so good. 

it was the most amazing day of my life, bar none and i have nothing but wonderful memories. ten years down and an eternity to go... i can't wait to see what comes next. ♥

10 year engageversary

ten years ago today, doug got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife... to spend his life and what comes next - by his side. 

who would have known on our first date (which i just so happen to have photos from, conveniently because we were going to our stake ysa ball) that we'd end up here all these years later.

i mean seriously, these photos are 12 years old! haha.

marriage is hard, but loving doug makes it a little easier ♥

five and a half years later...

in just 9 days - doug and i will have been married for 5 and a half years - freak! what a long time. it embarasses me to admit that my finished wedding album arrived on monday. yep that's right after all this time, i have just completed and ordered the album that i honestly meant to do years ago. but i must admit it was worth the wait - it looks really freaking good - and the best bit? $45 bargain i picked up on scoopon - hardcover, with 60 full colour silk magazine style pages. and... i made it myself!

engagement anniversary...

on friday - doug had i had been engaged for 5 years!
that's right ladies and gents,
5 years ago, we stopped at the perth temple
on our way back to my mum and dads after a day in perth,
where he knelt on the grass in front of me,
pulled out a beautiful white box and handed me a yellow rose, saying:
"jade i've loved you since the first moment i saw you,
i love you now, i'll always love you
and i'd love for you to be my wife...
will you marry me...?"

the ring was amazing... (he picked it all by himself!!)

and it still looks amazing on my finger

definately a good choice :)

love you bebeh! xxx

4 years and counting!

this time 4 years ago i had been married for just a few hours!
but 4 years, 48 months, 208 weeks, 1461 days later here i am...
still smitten - he's still just as hot!!

i enjoyed every minute of piking on the couch with
wok-in-a-box & a movie
even if the power decided to go out - and my western-power-employee-father was "conveniently" unreachable, hmmmm.
i got a present too!
a plaque for the wall - that i have been lusting after forever!
soooooo pretty!

here's to at least another four!!

love you!!